Tag Archives: cybersecurity

2015 Predictions: Reality Check

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Last December, we pulled out our crystal ball and called out a couple trends we thought would make a big impact in 2015. Now it's time to take a look back and see how well our predictions fared.[Tweet "A look back at how well our 2015 event predictions fared. #GovEventsBlog"]

  • Virtual events - We predicted that virtual events would grow due to the tight budgets for travel and training. While webinars continued to be popular mediums for delivering training and some events looked into hybrid formats, there was not a huge jump in virtual events, but they held steady. In fact, we saw in-person attendance increase this year. Prediction Grade: C+
  • Smaller Events - This prediction looked at the trend of having more localized/specialized smaller events as opposed to (or in addition to) large conferences. Of all the events posted on our site last year, one quarter would be considered small. While the large, traditional conferences are seeing an uptick in attendance and interest, there is still a huge market for small, targeted events. Grade: B
  • Big Data - We thought 2015 would be the year of Big Data-focused events, but with a number of high profile data breaches in government, cybersecurity remained the top priority.[Tweet "We thought 2015 would be the year of Big Data-focused events. #GovEventsBlog"] However, within those cyber events there was a lot of discussion about how Big Data can be used to prevent and detect breaches. Big Data events were strong in terms of number of events and its #3 rank in top search terms on the GovEvents site behind "cybersecurity" and "job fair". Grade: B
  • Attracting Millennials - We have seen changes in the federal meeting space that are both keeping up with the times and meeting the needs of Millennials. From more active social media presence to photo backdrops to promote event selfie sharing to changing up traditional agendas, we see events looking for ways to differentiate themselves to draw audiences of all ages. Grade: C+

[Tweet "Our 2015 government event predictions faired pretty well. #GovEventsBlog"]Our 2015 government event predictions faired pretty well. In a future post we'll lay out our thoughts for what 2016 may look like for federal events.

The Case of the Disappearing Links

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While we were at the AUSA Annual Meeting & Exposition a couple of weeks ago, we heard from a number of attendees that they have had trouble accessing information from emails because of a change in policy at DoD. New email security measures within DoD and throughout the federal agencies are taking live links out of emails (stripping links) and, in some cases, removing characters from the URLs. This means even if you copy and paste the web address it may not work if there are missing characters.[Tweet "New email policies at DoD/federal agencies are removing links/URLs from messages. #GovEventsBlog"]

The motivation behind this is likely to thwart foreign hacking attempts and phishing schemes where hackers will send an email that looks like it is from an official/legitimate source but contains links that, when clicked, take users to sites with malicious code.  We've written here before about the need to educate all employees, not just those in IT, as to their role in cyber security. Simply removing access to links does little to educate people about their role in protecting government data and systems.

While we applaud the effort to step up security, the practice of link stripping is concerning for all involved. Federal employees shared their frustrations with their inability to navigate to information they need to stay informed, be it a news article, registration for a training opportunity, or to download a whitepaper.[Tweet "Federal employees shared their frustrations with this new practice of link stripping. #GovEventsBlog"]

We encourage our members to communicate concerns to their IT departments and we'll do our part in talking to IT managers as well. But as we all know, policy, once enacted, is hard to change. So how do we work around this new reality? A couple ideas:

  • Make key events or news visible and accessible from your home page. If you are trying to drive people to a specific link, "advertise" it on your homepage. Email recipients may not be able to get to the exact page, but they should be able to find your home page and get to the info contained in an email message.
  • Look for other venues to drive people to links. If your audience cannot access links to your content at work, see how you can drive them via more "personal" channels. Look into Facebook ad campaigns or upping the number of posts you put on Twitter and/or LinkedIn.
  • Think about plain text. Everything old may be new again. While it may not be as pretty, plain text emails may help get better conversion rates. You can also try a mix of HTML, where in addition to the embedded links, you also list the URLs within the message.

We'd love to hear your feedback. For our government users, have you found a work around to stripped links? Let us know in the comments.

Top Events for Cybersecurity Month

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October is Cybersecurity Month and many organizations have taken the call to use these 31 days to educate and collaborate on solutions for a more secure cyber world. With over 70 cybersecurity events posted for the month of October on GovEvents, we wanted to highlight some of our picks for must attend events this month.[Tweet "Check out the top #government focused events for #Cybersecurity month #GovEventsBlog"]

  • October 7: Creating a Culture of Cybersecurity at Work (webinar) - The National Association of Counties will hold a series of webinars throughout the month with this one focusing on how organizations can enhance their security practices with widely available training and educational resources.
  • October 13: Closing the Desktop Security Vulnerability (webinar) - The combination of connectivity and skill can increase the risk of malicious intrusion at the desktop. This event, featuring the director of the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), will talk through NIAP's new requirements as well as the new Peripheral Sharing Switch Protection Profile (PSS PP 3.0).

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Pumpkin Lattes and Cybersecurity

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October is a month of cooling temperatures, falling leaves, and pumpkin flavored everything. More importantly, it is also a month dedicated to looking at best practices in cybersecurity that will protect our data and the systems we depend on from the evolving threats directed at them. [Tweet "October: falling leaves, pumpkin flavored everything and cybersecurity awareness. #GovEventsBlog "]

From a year's worth of headlines about breaches in the public and private sector we know the threat is real and quantifiable.

  • The annual cost of cybercrime to the global economy is over $100 billion dollars and affects 556 million victims per year.
  • The average length of time that a cyber-attack goes undetected is six months.
  • The average cost of a successful cyber-attack on an organization is rising year-over-year and is currently around $15 million.

October has been designated Cybersecurity Awareness Month by the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is heading up the awareness campaign. Working with public sector organizations and private companies, DHS is encouraging the technology industry to use the month for training and education within their workforce and the public at large. [Tweet "DHS is heading up the October cybersecurity awareness campaign. #GovEventsBlog"]The Department has broken the month into themed weeks to make the daunting task of securing our nation's systems a bit easier to swallow.  This year's themes are:

  • General Cybersecurity Awareness: 5 Years of Stop.Think.Connect.™
  • Creating a Culture of Cybersecurity at Work
  • Connected Communities: Staying Protected While Always Connected
  • Your Evolving Digital Life
  • Building the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals

The DHS website references keystone events nationwide addressing these themes. Next week, we'll provide a list of some key events for the federal IT and management audience.

A Look Ahead at 2015 Events

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While we've seen a trend toward smaller, more intimate events, 2015 signals the return of a number of conferences and shows that are mainstays of the Government IT industry. Here's what you can expect from the "usual suspects" in the first few months of 2015.

  • Federal Networks (Feb 23-24)- This government-wide conference focuses on net-centric solutions to the government's biggest challenges. The event gives great access to the insight from government CIOs and other high ranking IT officials. Signed up for 2015 are CIOs from Veterans Affairs, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security, and Social Security Administration.
  • AFCEA Homeland Security Conference (March 10-11) -- AFCEA International brings together the people in charge of ensuring success--from subject matter experts to frontline responders--for two days of open discussion about the various aspects of homeland security. Cathy Lanier, Chief, Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C., is a confirmed speaker and will lead a session titled "Ask the Chief."
  • International Wireless Communications Expo (March 16-20) - This show has been around for almost 40 years and in today's mobile world is more relevant than ever. This education-centered conference provides a wide variety of workshops, training, and short courses led by industry and government experts.
  • InfoSec World 2015 Conference and Expo (March 23-25) - This annual show features conference sessions, workshops and summits that address the most pressing matters in information security today. This year's speaker line-up includes a diverse set of voices ranging from the U.S. Secret Service to WalMart.
  • Sea-Air-Space (April 13-15) - This show, run by the Navy League, is now the largest maritime exposition in the U.S. The event combines a large expo floor displaying the latest in naval technology and equipment with professional development sessions focused on strategy and policy issues, as well as exhibit hall speaker sessions and demos.

What about you? What events are on your calendar for the first quarter?

 

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